Page:The Lark - E Nesbit, 1922.djvu/147

148 "Oh no!" said both together.

"It smells all right here," Lucilla explained, and Jane added:

"It makes you feel that this is the great world: so different from school. Do go on." And he did.

"It was jolly clever of you to think of those cigarettes," Jane said later; "it was a score to you. But I expect he'd really bought some already. No, I don't really—don't look so dismal; it was a splendid thought. If he'd been the snub-nosed charwoman you couldn't have made him happy with cigarettes. I say, Luce, we never offered Uncle James his share of the money."

"No more we did. Now we shall have to calculate what ten per cent. of all our shop money comes to. What a way to spend a bright day in May!"

"You'd rather spend it sitting by the edge of the fish-pond watching our gardener smoke."

"Yes—and so would you! Instead of which we'll mind the shop—and let Uncle James jolly well find us minding it if he drops down—I mean in—on us this afternoon."

But it was Mr. John Rochester who dropped in.

"I thought perhaps you would," said Lucilla, rather out of politeness than as a statement of fact, "because of the stables, you know."

"Ah—the stables!" said Mr. John Rochester. "I kept the stables dark yesterday because I didn't know exactly how we stood with Uncle. I wasn't sure that there mightn't be a recurrence of grumpiness on the part of Uncle. About the crocks and the sticks, you know."

"And was there?"

"No—on the contrary. I have never known him so amiable. Our noble work in cleaning off the gas-green paint has gone straight to his heart. He could talk of very little else,"

"We were just wondering how to find out how much ten per cent. of all our shop money would come to. You know that was what we settled to pay your uncle—as rent for the garden room, you know."